


The Wolf and the August Ram

by lennydotdotdot



Series: Broken Halla Horns [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Post-Trespasser, Rogue Inquisitor - Freeform, Tempest - Freeform, alchemist inquisitor, not canon, tempest inquisitor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 19:21:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lennydotdotdot/pseuds/lennydotdotdot
Summary: Misplaced Post-Trespasser writings featuring Falon Lavellan ruining Solas's day.Just for fun, no real continuity here.





	The Wolf and the August Ram

Falon had played with the idea of thinking of Solas as the Fen’Harel of his childhood tales, of a fearful beast who was neither friend nor foe. And Solas was, in so many ways, like the stories he’d heard. Shrewd and manipulative, offering wisdom like an old friend. But he always had his own motives, his own plans, and for the Dalish, well, they must never have been the beneficiaries of those plans or perhaps their tales would have been kinder to him.

But he wasn’t a story, he was real, he was a person, and he liked frilly little cakes in Orlesian markets and may or may not have pissed magic by accident at one time.

It was hard to imagine The Dread Wolf enjoying petit fours.

So he gave up rather quickly on thinking of Solas that way. Now he was just an old ally, now his enemy, who stared at him as he stepped through the Eluvian.

Falon hadn’t expected to find much on the other side – just another old fortress he could scour for information, for supplies, for more broken eluvians to haul back and restore. There’d be ghouls, there were always ghouls, or spirits or wraiths. Something that might try to kill Falon for the intrusion. Sometimes he could speak with them, letting the Well feed him old passwords and greetings. Sometimes not.

But there were no ghouls on the other side of this Eluvian, but instead a room that smells vaguely like cinnamon, old architecture filled with mismatched and _new_ bookshelves and a desk.

And behind the desk, Solas, his brow ever so slightly furrowed as he regarded Falon.

Gone were Falon’s fine clothes and armors – with no Josephine to wrangle him into finery he wore only dark leathers under a ragged cloak. His false arm, the one Dagna and Bianca had so painstakingly worked to build, was exposed. Ironbark and silverite, woven together between strands of lyrium, with runes pressed into the joints so it approximated a real arm. It wasn’t the same, would never be the same, but it sufficed and Solas’s eyes lingered on it far too long.

Falon broke the silence.

“Your spies didn’t tell you I got a new arm, I take it?”

“You disbanded the Inquisition,” Solas replied. “There were no spies to inform me.”

Falon didn’t believe him for a second – there were plenty more ways to spy on someone than through kitchen staff and couriers. After all, he’d done the same to Solas.

“Well, let me tell you, I miss cracking my knuckles.”

Solas peered over. “Your other hand is fine.”

“It’s not as satisfying with one hand,” Falon admitted. “The Ironbark knuckles don’t crack.”

“How have you come here?”

“I could ask you the same,” Falon said, cocking his head. “That one was broken up until a few minutes ago.”

“There are others in here that still function,” Solas replied. “I’ve been restoring this place.”

“Figures,” Falon muttered. “The other side was filled with ghouls. I figured I’d be cutting more of them down to get to the library. Instead I find you.”

“Yes,” Solas muttered, regarding the Eluvian. It had emitted a low hum on the other side, but now it made no sound at all, and the warmth on his back was nothing. Falon kept his shoulders square as he took in the room. The tiles on the floor had been stripped and repaved recently. Still smelled a little like fresh grout. And the walls were freshly plastered, they were too bright to be old.

“I don’t suppose you intended this,” Falon asked.

“No,” Solas replied flatly. “This is new.”

This wasn’t a mistake he’d make twice, Falon thought. “Well. Where does that leave us?”

“Do you intend to fight me here?” Solas asked.

“No,” Falon said briskly. “But I don’t have the mark anymore. If it comes to that, you’d better act quickly, or we’ll both be ghouls for the next unwitting intruder to fret over.”

Solas cracked a smile. Maybe he didn’t believe Falon, but then again maybe he did.

What Solas did with magic, Falon accomplished with alchemy. Salves and potions for every ailment, poisons for every enemy. He had paralyzed a dragon, finally, and it only took four years of development to accomplish. But he caught it, alive, and kept it under while the researchers drew detailed anatomical diagrams and collected shed scales and investigated her teeth.

And when all was said and done, he took her to some remote island with plenty of wild boar for her to hunt and left her for the last dose to wear off, muttering apologies to it as he ran his fingertips across her vibrant scales.

“Stay here, and stay safe, friend,” he’d said. “Don’t come preying on the shemlen, no matter how much they might deserve it. I can’t spare you twice.”

And she’d not been sighted since, to Falon’s knowledge, except as a sailor’s tale. Enough to let him know she’d stayed put.

If it came to it, Falon would shatter one of his flasks on the stone floor and release a deadly gas that would turn Solas’s insides outward. A last resort, a victory only in how spiteful it was. Normally, if he expected to use it, his face was fully covered and shielded, and even with that he would be lying sick for weeks after.

Magic or no magic, with no antidote, his body would fail him. And Solas had to know that. Spies or no spies.

“What have you come for, Inquisitor?”

“Information,” he said. “And as you said, there’s no Inquisition. Come to think of it, does it bother you, to have to call me Falon?”

Solas raised his chin and showed his teeth as he said, “Why should it?”

“Because you’ve made it very clear what you think of me,” Falon said. “And I know you don’t think of me as a friend.”

“I told you before,” Solas said. “The fault is not yours.”

“Fuck right off with that,” Falon said flippantly. “You want to eschew godhood? Stop talking like you’re one.”

Solas paused, and said, quietly, “Were things different—”

“They’re not. They’re what they are.”

“For now.”

A threat, a promise, whatever it was, it made Falon scowl.

“From what you said, we’re not going to be friends later either, seeing as I’m a dead man walking anyway,” Falon replied. He began to walk the room, and Solas watched him carefully as he began to investigate the bookshelves, thumbing at the spines as he passed. Some were in languages he didn’t know – others were familiar. Genetivi tomes, and a copy of the Chant, and—

“Is that my dissertation?”

Falon snatched it off the shelf and flipped it open. Sure enough. There was his name, old titles and all. A Treatise on the Alchemical Methods of the Dalish Kingdom. An absolute weapon of a tome, because it contained everything Falon could find as well as excerpts from works that the University never would have allowed to see print if not for _Inquisitor_ Lavellan's influence.

“Second edition, even,” Falon remarked.

“The First Edition contained your name misspelled.”

“I know!” Falon said. “And I even sent my manuscript _written_. How do you misspell a name you’ve seen? And I wrote it out just in time, apparently.”

Solas winced.

“Oh come off it,” Falon said, shoving the book back in the shelf. “This new one is good enough to write with. My handwriting is probably neater than it used to be.”

“I assume you care about your penmanship more than you used to.”

Falon smiled a tight smile that wasn’t really, and said, “My poor penmanship made trouble for your spies, did it?”

Solas looked completely unabashed as he said, “It would have been more legible had you not insisted on writing your letters in charcoal.”

“It’s what I had on hand,” Falon said, winking.

Solas muttered a curse under his breath.

“So what is this place? New office? You haven’t painted wolves all over the walls yet.”

“Most people do not prefer asceticism.”

Not a direct answer, but good enough. It _was_ his office, or was going to be. Falon started towards the desk and said, “At least you’ve graduated from Sister Pretrine. Great propagandist, that one.”

“It was to learn the opinion of the times,” Solas replied.

“You could have gotten that from the tavern.”

“Not with you bearing the mark.”

“If you hadn’t been such a prick from the start, I might have told you about the noble whose servants I caught accusing me of eating human flesh to Giselle,” Falon said, and he was pleased to see Solas’s ears dip a little low, the slightest admission of guilt. Falon moved to thumb through the drawers when they slammed shut suddenly.

“That’s enough.”

At least now he knew whatever was in there was important, important enough that he wouldn’t allow a cursory glance like he had with his bookshelves. Falon rolled his eyes and turned his attention to a little wooden statuette on Solas’s desk, a little emerald knight, standing beside his vigilant wolf. From Juna, who’d taken up residence in Skyhold’s stables sometime before the Exalted Council. Falon raised a brow.

“A gift from one of my spies.”

“The one who made it was cut down in Orlais after the Inquisition was disbanded,” Falon replied. “He was unarmed at the time. His killer was hanged, at least. I brought him back to Wycome to bury him with the rest of them.”

Solas took a slow breath as Falon spoke.

“I am sorry—”

“I don’t need your pity,” Falon said crisply. “But I’ll be taking this. You don’t deserve it.”

Solas waved a hand dismissively, and Falon tucked it into a pouch at his hip. He turned to the bookshelf behind the desk, and at least this one had a few more noteworthy titles. Magical theories, theorems on the veil. Mathematic texts and dozens of untitled journals. No alchemical texts – that was more Vivienne’s wheelhouse anyway.

“How is Cassandra?”

“She hits harder than ever,” Falon said, not taking his eyes away from the bookshelf. “Last we sparred, she nearly knocked my head off. Probably still have lumps to show for it.”

“Are you going to continue to rifle through my things?” Solas asked, “Or perhaps I should have someone bring wine.”

“Well I did come specifically to rifle, Solas, I just expected the denizens of this fort to be less than alive. Get something with some bite to it, if you’re going to call for wine. None of the sweet stuff.”

Much to Falon’s amusement, Solas _did_ call for wine, sending the order through a crystal on his desk – not unlike the one Falon used to speak with Dorian. He also pulled out a cushioned chair and sat across from Falon, and rolled his eyes when Falon refused to sit _properly_ in the chair, instead sitting sideways with one leg up over the arms and his good arm wrapped around the side. His new arm held the glass as a red-haired elven girl poured a glass with a completely warranted level of surprise when she realized who she was pouring for.

“Sweet Andraste’s ass—is that really Inquisitor Lavellan—”

“Yes.”

“Call me Falon.”

“How’d you get in here?”

Falon looked back at the Eluvian, and shrugged. “I really can’t say, ma’am.”

Solas dismissed her with a gesture, and her eyes were wide the entire time she backed through the door. The two bottles sat beside each other on his desk. One for him, one for Falon. Smart. Kept Falon from dosing the wine with magebane. Besides that, he’d given Falon a dark red with a bitter tang, and was drinking something light and fruity himself. Neither would want to drink the other’s.

He poured a glass, took a long sniff, and turned to Solas and said, “You know, if she didn’t uncork the bottle in front of me, I’d assume this was poison.”

“It may be,” Solas replied, sipping from his own glass.

“Care to prove it’s not?”

Solas took Falon’s glass and took a long drink from it, scowling heavily.

Two things Solas hated drinking; tea, and red wine.

“Better?”

“Well,” Falon said, in his most academic tone, “You could have dosed yourself with the antidote.”

Solas handed Falon his own glass. And Falon suffered through a sip of too-sweet, too-dry wine that gave him an instant headache.

“Good,” Falon muttered. “Now we’re both miserable.”

Solas took back his wine and Falon his, and they each drank a glass. No tricks, at least. Falon could have tried dosing Solas’s glass while he drank from his, but he imagined he’d be caught.

“Did you ever get around to reading Varric’s book about us?” Falon asked. “He completely gave up on you. All you do in there is spout Fade puns, and stun people with your bald head.”

Solas didn’t even blink as he said, “Are you particularly flattered by his description of _you_?”

“Honestly, I thought it was fucking hilarious,” Falon said. “Could you imagine actually shouting any of those lines in a fight? There’s no time for it.”

Varric had written, of Falon, that he had all the bitterness of an old veteran and none of the years. It was the first sentence he’d written of Falon. He brushed over the worst parts, the anger, the fighting, and focused instead on the alchemy, the stealth, his knack for climbing up high ridges and sneaking up behind his enemies. In the book, Inquisitor Lavellan dropped one-liners as often as his concocted grenades.

But when Falon visited Varric in Kirktown, Varric spent the whole time fussing over him, asking if he was eating alright, trying to see what he could do for the arm. And he called in a favor from Bianca, made Falon promise not to tell, and Bianca set to work with Dagna creating an arm that would do what Falon wanted it to. He wanted to write, he wanted to cook, he wanted to brew his own potions and poisons without dictating to another and trusting their hands would be right for the task.

And Varric had made no promises, but he came through.

“Do you still have nightmares?”

“Sometimes, since I stopped taking my potion. Though not as often,” Falon said, punctuating his answer with a long drink. “I’m too tolerant to magebane, anyhow. If I drink the dose I need, I’m going to give myself an ulcer.”

“I warned you.”

Falon shrugged. “I wasn’t going to live past twenty, as far as I knew. I was going to finish up with Corypheus, avenge and bury my clan, and then I was going to drink Tears of the Dead. Not long enough for me to suffer from the magebane.”

Solas frowned, and set his glass down on the table. Falon did the same, and folded his hands together over his raised knee.

“You never said as much.”

“Didn’t I? I said it didn’t matter what happened to me.”

The words apparently took on a whole new meaning for Solas, who pushed his wine away and massaged the bridge of his nose. He muttered in elvhen he must have forgotten that Falon could understand now, and the Well brought forth what his own knowledge did not. “ _Child, this was never meant for you.”_

The same hollow admission he’d made before.

“You found some reason to continue on.”

“Thanks for that,” Falon said, raising his glass in a mocking toast. “To spite.”

“That is not the only reason,” Solas corrected. “You were not planning to drink Tears of the Dead after your work was published, surely?”

Falon shrugged. “I was optimistic enough to think I could make something worthwhile once the fighting was done. Put that title I didn’t want to use for something constructive. Be the elf the University couldn’t ignore or discredit, raise a few more voices where I could. But none of it will matter while you’re still planning to kill everyone.”

Solas gave him a chiding look, and Falon cut off whatever lecture was brewing in his chest.

“Spare me your endless explanations – whatever you decide to call it, that’s what _you_ told me will happen.” He turned to the door. “Do they know?”

“Some.”

“Interesting.”

Solas raised a brow. “And how will you convince them?”

“I don’t need to,” Falon said. “I only need to plant the seeds. The rest will happen on its own.”

He did not have to finish with who he learned that from. Solas looked at him with understanding, and with the sort of pride a father turned on their son.

Of course, Falon knew he wasn’t going to get a chance this day to sow seeds of dissent. Not directly. Either Solas would unlock the Eluvian, and send Falon home before locking it behind him, or he would stay a prisoner, and he would be stuck in the position of one who shouts from a cell, a lunatic who would say anything to be free. They’d take his arm, and his poisons, and his daggers and his tools, and he’d have nothing but his words and those wouldn’t be enough. They never had been, for Falon.

“Is that what your plan is for this moment?” Solas asked.

“No, but I’ll take credit if it works,” Falon said, taking another sip of wine. Solas laughed faintly at that. “While I have you here – satisfy my curiosity. What encounters did you actually have with my people before you met me, if you were asleep?”

“As you say, they occurred in the Fade. I witnessed many things before I woke.”

“Please tell me you introduced yourself as Fen’Harel to some poor apprentice.”

Solas took another sip of his wine, and glanced away to hide the color in his cheeks, and that was all the answer Falon needed.

“That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant,” Falon laughed. “I owe Sera a drink.”

There were other questions – stupid things Falon had carried with him for a long while and would never get answered. He let them bubble to the surface and Solas obliged him, and for once they had a conversation that didn’t end in screaming or punches thrown.

He drank half the bottle before he slipped the cork back in, and Solas drank one more glass of his own before he did the same.

“So,” Falon said. “The Eluvian. It’s locked, because I told Merrill to come check on me if I wasn’t out in ten minutes.”

“So it is not a standing army on the other side, waiting to invade?”

“With the way they fight, it might as well be,” Falon said. “Just like the old days. You’re not the only one who can take down a Qunari horde.”

Solas smiled thinly, hollowly.

“I won’t be taken prisoner,” Falon said. “So I suggest you open it.”

“How would you stop me, Inquisitor?”

“I’m not the Inquisitor anymore,” Falon said. “But when I was, I dropped a mountain on myself to stop Corypheus’s dragon from killing everyone. I’ve other stopgaps here. It’d take about a minute to rot your kidneys and liver and put clots in your lung, but that won’t matter because you’ll be paralyzed on the ground in eight, ten seconds. About five minutes later you’d have so many clots in your brain your eyes will bleed. Ten minutes later, dead and gone. It’s a nasty little cocktail – no antidote for it because it wouldn’t be safe to test. It would kill me. And I’m not clear on this whole immortality thing, but it would wreck your body – magic be damned. As I said, we’ll both be ghouls.”

Solas looked at Falon with interest, and asked, “Do you think I would harm you?”

“Not directly,” Falon replied, and the words apparently stung because Solas broke eye contact and settled somewhere on Falon’s shoulders instead of his face. “But if you were to take me captive here, I’d only get one last chance to delay you,” Falon said resolutely. “And I’d have to take it.”

“How very heroic,” Solas replied crisply, “For someone who eschews heroism.”

“A wolf in a trap gnaws off its own leg to get free. A mother deer leads wolves and hounds away from her young to give them a chance to escape.” His own father had led a dozen mercenaries into a pass and torched it all to give a young mother the chance to escape with her Bonded and newborn. “It’s in our nature, Fen’Harel.”

Solas looked at him, knowingly, and said, “Go to the Eluvian. I will open it for you.”

Falon took the red wine under his arm, and made sure at least one eye was on Solas at all times.

His eyes flashed, and the Eluvian made a sound like wooden chimes, and a creek, and on the other side he could hear Merrill chirping—“It’s active again—”

“Dareth shiral,” Falon said with a final mock toast. “See you next Tuesday.”

Solas made a noise to rival any of Cassandra’s disgusted grunts as Falon stepped through, into the waiting arms of his friends and allies.

“By the Dread Wolf—you’re alright—is that wine?”

He could hear the sound of the Eluvian fading fast, and he knew it wouldn’t open again for some time. Didn't matter. They didn't need Solas having a door to their base any more than Solas needed them to have one to his. They could trigger it to open later, somewhere else, somewhere safer, without risking attack.

“We should move this somewhere less secure. It goes right to his den”

“If there’s wine there,” Fenris said, “It may not be so bad.”


End file.
